‘At least we can breathe now.’
‘True. But we’re still going to need food and water. I can’t see much of either here, can you?’
Mitch didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. The land they were in was as barren as any they could imagine – miles of trackless fog and decaying ruins. Long ago, there must have been some sort of civilisation here. Left behind were the remnants of its existence: a corroded metal city made of rust-crumbled walls, exposed basements, the broken stubs of what might have been towers or gantries. There was nothing but sharp metallic edges, cracked and shot through with rust and lichen.
‘Who d’you reckon lived here?’ Mitch wondered.
‘I don’t think anyone ever lived here,’ replied the Doctor. ‘I think it was built and abandoned before it was used. Perhaps it was the result of some kind of automated construction that was forgotten about, or just never needed.’
‘Mechonoids, you mean?’
‘Something like that, perhaps. Whatever it was, no one came. The place was left derelict. The elements moved in – the wind and the rain, the fog. It’s had a corrosive effect over thousands of years.’
‘And the ghosts?’
They’d seen them moving in the ruins: not just the local wildlife, which seemed to be some kind of predator insect that had been stalking them since their arrival, but spectral figures half-glimpsed through the ragged gaps or crumbling doorways. The visions were always fleeting.
The Doctor’s eyes narrowed, his brows drawing down like a hood over his thoughts. ‘Now they are interesting,’ he admitted. ‘Could they be the intelligence at work here, I wonder?’
‘Look,’ said Mitch, pointing across the remains. Two or three hundred metres away there was a soft, blue light. After a moment, a tall, spectral figure seemed to glide through the walkway, slowly turning this way and that before gradually fading into the mist. ‘Another one.’
‘We saw the same sort of thing in the ice age, remember, just before the time flux,’ noted the Doctor. ‘But who are they? What do they want?’
‘You believe in ghosts, Doc? Maybe this place was inhabited. Maybe these are the ghosts of the people who lived here.’
‘I doubt that. They’re too tall for the architecture, for one thing. And as I said, there’s nothing left here to indicate that there was any intelligent life at all. No, they’re visitors here, Mitch – just like us.’
Another ghost appeared, a pallid figure drifting silently through the ruins on some unknown errand. Mitch shivered. ‘They still give me the creeps.’
Hobbo clambered up the wall to join them. ‘More ghosts an’ ghouls?’ she asked as they watched the glow fade.
‘They’re appearing more frequently now,’ said the Doctor thoughtfully. ‘We must be closing in on the epicentre of the time flux.’
‘We can’t stay where we are, though,’ said Hobbo. ‘Jem’s still in shock but those predators are closin’ in.’
The predator insects had been roaming the area since they arrived, scuttling around the darker corners of the ruins, hiding in the shadows on top of the walls where the ground light couldn’t reach them. According to the Doctor they were evolutionary misfires, typical of experimental prehistoric life. But they were hunters nevertheless; a pack of them had turned on one of their own, dismembering and devouring it with brutal efficiency. Now they seemed to be circling the Doctor and his party through the fog, getting closer all the time.
‘They look for the weakest,’ Hobbo said. ‘That’s what predators do, isn’t it? Stalk their prey and pick off the weakest.’
Even though Mitch was an old man, they all knew she was referring to Jem. The clone astrogator was alone, depressed, consumed with grief. It was almost like she’d given up. She was exhausted and an obvious target for any hunter.
‘Come on,’ said Mitch. ‘Let’s move out.’
—
The Doctor and Mitch went ahead while Hobbo helped Jem along. They were heading away from the predators, deeper into the ruins.
The Doctor came to a sudden stop as a faint blue glow appeared around the corner ahead of them. The group drew together as the apparition approached – a tall, hooded figure which loomed over them, casting a strange light across the ruins. Shadows seemed to crawl away from it to hide in the mist.
‘Everybody remain calm,’ said the Doctor. He stood up straight and faced the ghost directly as it approached. Inside the hood, just visible within the ghastly light, was a long, birdlike face with dark eyes.
And then it disappeared, like smoke on the breeze.
‘They’re really very irritating,’ grumbled the Doctor. ‘Coming and going like that without saying a word. Who do they think they are?’
‘The Phaeron,’ said Jem.
They all turned to look at her.
‘I can sense them,’ she explained. ‘It’s just like when I was on the Alexandria, coming through the wormhole.’
‘You mean the voices? You said you heard voices again. You could sense the fluctuations in dark matter.’
Jem frowned. ‘Something like that. It’s just a feeling. But they are the Phaeron – or the ghosts of the Phaeron. I’m sure of it.’
‘Then why don’t they introduce themselves?’ asked Mitch. ‘Instead of just creepin’ around all the time?’
‘Maybe they are trying to,’ said Jem.
‘Perhaps they can’t even see us,’ suggested the Doctor as he examined the spot where the wraith had passed moments before. The glowing dust was undisturbed by its passing, as if it had never been there at all. His fists clenched and unclenched as he thought. ‘Or perhaps they only perceive us faintly, as ghosts of ourselves, in whatever time stream they exist.’
They had paused for too long. Something scrambled up onto the top of the nearest wall with long, skittering legs. A multitude of glistening, egg-like eyes focused on the intruders and the insect distended its wide, hooked jaws to let out a sharp screech of triumph.
Hobbo grabbed Jem and pulled her out of the way as the insect ran straight down the wall. Its mandibles snapped at the air where Jem had stood a moment before. It threw back its thin head and its black mouth gaped open, full of concentric rings of sharp, hooked fangs. It screeched again, sending a thin spray of saliva into the cold night air.
‘When I say run…’ said the Doctor quietly, but Hobbo had already grabbed Jem’s hand and pulled her away, further into the ruins. The Doctor took hold of Mitch’s arm and propelled him bodily after them.
More of the insectoid creatures were climbing up the walls to join the first, waving their antennae in the night air and letting out a series of blood-curdling shrieks. The hunt was on.
—
Jem was struggling to keep up. She was panting by the time they reached a wide, central plaza. Moss grew up a series of wide, cylindrical columns but whatever kind of roof they had once supported was long gone. Above was nothing but empty black space. Around them was the slowly rolling fog, and the predators. They could all hear them – scuttling through the mist, unseen but ever present.
‘Don’t they ever give up?’ Hobbo wondered bitterly.
‘It’s not in their nature,’ said the Doctor. ‘They’ll already have marked one of us off as prey. Now they’re just herding us, and waiting for the opportunity to strike.’
They crossed the open plaza, footsteps echoing around the columns and colonnades. The walls were even more bent and broken here, little more than misshapen lumps of corroded iron covered in a layer of fibrous grey lichen. There was no straight route through – they had to climb over slabs of fallen debris wherever they could.
‘This ain’t good,’ said Mitch, helping Jem over one large boulder. ‘We’re vulnerable.’
‘We’re vulnerable anywhere,’ said the Doctor.
‘You sure this is the right way?’ asked Hobbo.
The Doctor was scanning with his sonic screwdriver, trying to pick up the faintest signal. ‘We need to get as close to the TARDIS as possible, at least in space. T
hen – well, it’s just a matter of time, I’m afraid.’
Dark shapes crawled through the fog around them, slipping in between the broken metalwork, working their way closer and closer.
‘I think they’re gettin’ ready to attack,’ whispered Hobbo, walking backwards so that she could keep an eye on the predators.
‘Now would be the perfect time,’ admitted the Doctor, turning around in a circle to see how many there were. He counted a dozen that he could see; there were probably more hidden in the fog. ‘We can’t move quickly and they’ve got us surrounded.’
‘Gotta keep movin’,’ advised Mitch. ‘If we stop they’ll know we’re finished.’
‘Protect Jem,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’ll be her they’re after.’
‘No, wait,’ Jem said. They paused, looking all around them. The mist was closing in. Sharp spires rose irregularly from the milky vapour, some of them connected by rusting gantries and angular fingers of metal poking out like aerials. ‘Whatever this place is,’ Jem said, ‘the Phaeron must be here for a reason. And they’ve brought us here, too. I can sense that now, in the same way I sensed them in the wormhole. They’re connected somehow.’
‘With the wormhole?’ The Doctor’s frown deepened. ‘Is that even possible?’
‘It must be. It’s the only way I could have heard them then. It’s the only way I can hear them now.’ Jem held her head in both hands, rubbing gently at the scalp and its lattice of augmentation sockets. ‘It’s the same thing, the same whispers in the dark matter. The imperfection. They keep talking about an imperfection.’
‘Do we have to discuss this now?’ asked Mitch nervously.
‘Wait,’ said the Doctor. ‘If what Jem says is true, then the situation is more serious than I thought. And I already thought it was very, very serious indeed.’ The look of deep concern on his long, lined features suddenly morphed into a brighter one as he took a sharp intake of breath. ‘Oh! Oh, I’ve just had the most extraordinary thought! What if the Phaeron are made of dark matter? Oh, that would be extraordinary! That would be something completely new, and completely different – like nothing I’ve ever encountered before…’
And at that moment a predator flew straight onto Jem’s shoulders and bore her to the ground. She landed with a thud in the dust and immediately kicked out, trying to dislodge the creature, but it had too good a grip, and too many limbs with which to maintain it.
Hobbo made a grab for the insect but couldn’t get hold of it. Jem was rolling frantically from side to side, twisting and turning as the predator’s curved mandibles snapped repeatedly at her throat.
‘I can’t get it off!’ Hobbo yelled.
‘It’ll kill her!’ shouted Mitch.
The predator’s segmented body arched as it strengthened its grip and mauled Jem’s head and neck. The Doctor rammed his sonic screwdriver into a gap in the creature’s chitin and fired off a series of ultrasonic pulses into the soft flesh beneath. The insect let out a sudden squeal, spraying pus-like saliva from its flaying mandibles. The Doctor kept the screwdriver jammed in the carapace and activated. Slowly the beast began to let go of Jem, reluctantly tearing one leg away at a time in an effort to reach back using its many joints and remove the irritation. Teeth gritted, the Doctor increased the frequency on the screwdriver’s output and suddenly many more legs were flailing madly, loosening their grip.
With a grunt of effort, Hobbo tore the thing off Jem and threw it onto the ground, where Mitch stamped his foot down on its exposed thorax, just above the point where its legs joined the body. The creature hissed and squealed and whipped its legs around but it was firmly pinned to the floor.
The Doctor pulled Jem to her feet. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I-I think so.’ She was shaking, and there was blood on her neck where the insect’s mandibles had sliced the skin.
‘Cuts and contusions only,’ said the Doctor briskly. ‘You’ll be fine!’
Hobbo bent down, gripped the sides of the insect’s thrashing head and twisted. The muscles knotted in her forearms as the creature squirmed madly under Mitch’s boot. Suddenly, with a loud popping crack, the head came free, gushing yellow slime and trailing long, tendon-like organs. With a snarl Hobbo threw the head away. It bounced against a wall and then rolled away, snapping and chomping at nothing before finally becoming still.
Mitch took his foot off the carcass. The legs had stopped thrashing and were slowly curling inwards, trembling as the last, autonomic impulses fired through the nervous system.
‘There’s more of them,’ said Jem.
The insects were crawling out of the mist towards them – many more. They were climbing over the walls and down the gantries, appearing everywhere. Hundreds of them.
‘Run,’ said the Doctor, grabbing Jem’s hand. Mitch and Hobbo sprinted after them, heading deeper into the ruins, but the horde of insects was closing in too fast, scrambling over every obstacle as they converged, and Mitch let out a sharp cry of pain as two of them leapt onto his back and took him down.
‘Mitch!’ Hobbo skidded to halt and turned back, a look of horror on her face as she saw the old man disappear under a river of insects. His baseball cap had landed at her feet. ‘Mitch!’
Hobbo started forward to help, but the Doctor grabbed her and held her fast. ‘It’s too late,’ he said savagely.
The insects piled onto Mitch, mandibles snapping and ripping at him. He struggled madly beneath them, and Hobbo caught one single glimpse of his blood-streaked face looking up at her. His eyes were imploring.
‘Run!’ Mitch screamed, and then convulsed as long, piercing spikes extended from his attackers’ throats and thrust deep into his body. A blood frenzy overtook the horde as they surrounded their prey, long feeding tubes protruding from between slavering mandibles to seek out the meat.
The insects lost all interest in Hobbo, Jem and the Doctor as they concentrated on the feast.
‘Don’t look,’ the Doctor said, turning Hobbo’s tearstained face gently away. ‘Just don’t look.’
Chapter
15
Clara felt like she’d walked for miles. Her hair was lank with the humidity, and her clothes were soaked in sweat. ‘Are you sure this is the right direction?’
Tibby stopped and looked skyward. A dim green light could be seen through the forest canopy. ‘Well, if that really is the neutron star this world orbits…then yes, this is probably the right way.’
‘It’s the way we were heading in the ice age,’ Balfour confirmed as he joined them. He checked his wrist panel and then looked up. His blond hair was matted against his head and his throat was shiny with sweat. The jungle cast a strange, green pallor on his skin.
‘What’s the hold-up?’ asked Marco. He trudged into view, wiped the sleeve of his spacesuit across his face and then spat into the undergrowth.
‘Just trying to get our bearings,’ Clara told him.
‘We could be going round in circles,’ he said. ‘Besides, I still don’t understand where we’re supposed to be headed.’
‘We’re trying to find the others,’ Balfour reminded him patiently.
‘They’re probably dead.’
Clara glared at him. ‘We don’t know that. Until we do, we’ll continue the search.’
‘You’re welcome to stay here if you like,’ said Balfour.
Marco sniffed. ‘We’d best stay together.’
Clara turned and pressed on. Her feet were heavy, and everything was becoming an effort. She couldn’t even be bothered arguing with Marco. Her mouth felt dry and with a groan she realised the last time she’d had anything to drink was the Doctor’s hot chocolate on board the Alexandria. Her stomach rumbled at the memory.
Marco continued to complain about everything: the humidity, the plants, the insects, even the direction they were going in.
‘Put it this way…’ said Balfour, stopping for a breather as they crossed a wide chasm bridged by a fallen tree. ‘We can all carry on in this direction, or you can g
o back the way we came. Alone.’
Marco nodded. ‘OK, we carry on.’
The chasm they were crossing disappeared into a green mist far below. The sides were carpeted in a thick, spongy moss. They walked carefully across the tree-bridge, all too aware that the bark was covered with slippery trails of white sap leaking down around the circumference and dripping into the gorge below. This leakage was caused by a number of large insects the size of cricket stumps, embedded in the bark like needles in a pin-cushion, guzzling the juice of the tree. Occasionally one of the stump-insects would quiver like an arrow striking home and then a thin stream of sap – or something – would jet out of its rear end, arcing through the air and disappearing in a rain of droplets far below.
They kept stopping to check the position of the sun. The bright spot in the sky – if that’s what it was – could barely be seen through the roof of leaves and crisscrossing branches. Clara didn’t really know what a non-revolving neutron star was, but it didn’t shed much light, even this far back in the planet’s history. The jungle was kept in perpetual gloom.
A little further on and they came to another halt. Clara was hot and dizzy now, and she guessed the others felt the same. Balfour bent over, resting his hands on his knees, unable to stand up straight any longer. Marco was panting hard and looked to be in some pain, but even he was too exhausted to complain.
‘What’s the hold-up?’ asked Balfour eventually.
‘Look ahead,’ said Clara.
In front of them was another clearing, carpeted with a thick layer of matted reeds in which there were innumerable dips filled with water, or what looked like water. Growing in profusion around the water ditches were some familiar mustard-coloured plants. Each one was filled to the brim of its petal cup with thick, black spawn.
The four of them stood and stared for a full minute, each remembering the agonising death of Tanya Flexx in their own way.
‘I’m not going anywhere near them,’ said Tibby. She spoke very quietly, as if scared to disturb the plants.
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